State Supreme Court Rules Warrants Needed For Cell Phone Tracking

Police in New Jersey will soon have to get a warrant if they want to track a suspect using cellphone locating data.

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In a unanimous ruling Thursday, the state Supreme Court invalidated the arrest of a burglary suspect in Monmouth County in 2006 because police located him using data from T-Mobile without getting a warrant.

Current state law allows police to get a court order to use cellphone tracking data if they reasonably believe it is relevant to an investigation.

Thursday's ruling will now require police to get a warrant to use the data based on probable cause. The Supreme Court says the rule won't be applied to cases retroactively but only to the case in question and all future cases.